By Manoah Esipisu
Africa will launch a new home for its continental assembly on Thursday amid criticism the Pan-African Parliament will be a costly and unnecessary venture.
South Africa won the bid to host the parliament, formally inaugurated in Addis Ababa last March, and will house it in temporary quarters for five years in Midrand, a business district located between Johannesburg and Pretoria.
The 265-seat assembly, formed in the image of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, will be Africa's first representative body. It will initially advise its 53 member states on policy issues ranging from HIV and Aids to stifling debt, but will eventually seek to generate legislation and harmonise laws.
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Intended to bolster Africa's democratic credentials and win more foreign investment for the continent, critics of the scheme say it will be little more than an ineffective debating chamber on a continent where rulers of several states owe their power to coups or polls regarded as flawed by international observers.
"These international talking shops add no value," said Ugandan commentator Andrew Mwenda.
"In Uganda there is not even basic agreement on national goals... Now how can you expect Africa's diverse states to form a coherent unit? You cannot begin these grandiose schemes for the continent before you have unity at home."
Other woes - from Aids to poor governance - have proved formidable challenges to Africa and then there are the problems specific to organising such an assembly, analysts say.
"There are a lot of logistical problems to be sorted out in the long term like whether officials should be elected directly or through the countries' own parliaments; how long tenure should be; whether elections should take place on national party lines or no party lines," said Abubakar Momoh, political scientist at Lagos State University.
Each member state is entitled to choose five members from their national assemblies to represent the country at the Pan-African Parliament.
"It reflects Africa's keenness for greater transparency in the management of its affairs, willingness to resolve its problems, and an improved environment to spark sustained investment and growth," said Wiseman Nkhuhlu, CEO of the continent's economic recovery initiative known as Nepad.
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